Government backtracks, suspends training of teachers during winter vacation

Edu minister asks dept to hear out grievances of teachers

The defiance shown by the government teachers on the issue of holding training during the winter vacation has forced the government to come off the high horse and suspended the ten-day training proposed by the education department.

Understanding the problem of the teachers who had met him a day before, the state education minister Arvind Pandey has given verbal orders to the department officials on Saturday to suspend the proposed training during the winter vacation.

Acting on the order of the minister, the department acted swiftly and issued an order directed to all the chief education officers ( CEO), district education officers, principals of District Institute of Education and Training ( DIET), the additional director State Council of Education Research and Training ( SCERT), Ajay Kumar Naudiyal, suspending the proposed block-wise ten-day training programme slated to commence from January 9, 2019. The order also mentioned that the training has been suspended on verbal orders of the state education minister.

The mellowing of the state education minister has sounded surprising to many, given his relentless efforts to set an image of a tough customer while dealing with the demands of the employees of the education department.

It is pertinent to mention here that the state education department and the mighty union of primary teachers, the Prathmik Shikshak Sangh (PSS) had come face to face on the issue of holding training during vacations. While department had been adamant on holding the training as announced and even threatened to initiate disciplinary action against those giving it a miss, an undaunted president of PSS Digvijay Singh Chauhan had sent a letter to the director Academic Research and Training Seema Jaunsari on Friday, informing her about the decision of the association to boycott the training programme.

Relieved by the order of suspension of training during winter vacations, the teachers have thanked the minister for showing empathy towards their problems. “We want the minister to ensure that not just this training but every such activity organized during the vacations where teachers are deployed are not held. If it is not possible the government should annul all our vacations and grant benefit of 30 Earned Leaves ( EL) like other employees,’’ said a teacher posted in Pauri Garhwal district. Read more posts…